SELER] MEXICAN PICTUKE WRITINGS FRAGMENT II 155 



(lilleres et Monuments des Peuples indigenes de I'Amerique, under 

 the title " Genealogie des Princes d'Azcapotzalco "\ 



The drawings on this page (phite vii) occupy a space bounded by 

 straight lines, to the right of which a path showing footprints and to 

 the left a body of water, stream or sea margin, indicated by drawings 

 of Avaves and whirlpools and by a light blue color, run the whole 

 length of the page. Near the lower edge a second path, beginning 

 at right angles to the first, leads straight across the page to the 

 water, and about the center of the page a small body of water, also 

 beginning at right angles to the principal path, crosses the page in 

 like manner. The whole space above the lower path is divided by 

 horizontal lines into 27 divisions, which, however, decrease in length 

 from the seventeenth down in consequence of a boundary line Avhich 

 begins at the left and runs diagonally upward to the right. In one 

 of these divisions, the fourth counting from the lower path, a row 

 of dark figures filled in with dots and angular lines runs straight 

 across the page. In Mexican picture writing this is the way in which 

 the idea of tlalli, or milli, "• acre "', or "' field ", is expressed. The 

 other divisions, except two which are empty and a third in which a 

 kind of explanatory note is written, are each provided with the head 

 and the liieroglyph of a particular person. 



This general arrangement of the page shows that we can hardly 

 have to do here with a genealogy, as von Humboldt supposed. The 

 whole arrangement far more closeh^ resembles a doomsday book, a 

 map of public lands, or a register of landed property; and this in 

 fact it is proved to be by the writing, which occurs in the lowest 

 division below the lower path. 



In this division we see to the right the picture of King Motecuh- 

 zoma, the ninth king of the Mexicans, known as Xocoyotzin, "" the 

 young ", in contradistinction to Ueue-Motecuhzoma, the elder Mote- 

 cuhzoma, the fifth king of the Mexicans, whose other name was 

 Ilhuicamina, " he who shoots at the heavens '\ To the left is the 

 picture of a hut built of straw or reeds, painted yellow above a 

 white circle. And between the picture of the king and the figure 

 of the hut are the woi'ds: y xacallo camaca y tlatovani motecuh- 

 zomatzin mochi ytonal catca (''the country house of Camaca: all 

 parcels of land which belonged to King Motecuhzoma "). The word 

 tonalli, which is here the most important word, deciding the mean- 

 ing of the whole, means " glow ", " warmth of the sun ", " sunnner "" 

 in its more literal application : but it also means the " character " or 

 '' signs "" of a day or a year; that is, one of the 20 juctures by which 

 the Mexicans designated their days or one of the 4 of these Avhicli 

 designated the years. Hence follows the secondary meaning, " fate 

 decided by the day of birth ", and lastly, in general terms, '' that 

 which is assigned to anyone ", that is, what is allotted to him, his 



